


Things of Subtlety and Beauty

by Culumacilinte



Series: Maybe even thou shalt find it [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Culumacilinte/pseuds/Culumacilinte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is held among the Elves that when Dwarves die, they return to the rock from whence they were hewn in the beginning, but that is not the belief of the Dwarves. It is said in their lore that they are accorded a place in the Halls of Mandos which Aulë their maker has set aside for them, and this is indeed the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things of Subtlety and Beauty

It is held among the Elves that when Dwarves die, they return to the rock from whence they were hewn in the beginning, but that is not the belief of the Dwarves. It is said in their lore that they are accorded a place in the Halls of Mandos which Aulë their maker has set aside for them, and this is indeed the truth. Under the Halls are Caves where go the _fëar_ of the Dwarves after they die. Grand they are, more beautiful even than Menegroth of old, more rich in gems and seams of precious metals than any cavern upon Arda, so that all the glory of Erebor and Moria and all the great kingdoms of the Dwarves would be to them as naught. Here have dwelt the fathers and mothers of the Dwarves since the first Seven, and here they await until the ending of the world, when they will come forth once more to assist Aulë with the rebuilding.

Few are the Valar who have visited these Halls. Only Mandos, for they are in his realm, and Aulë, who has unmeasured love for the children of his thought. Yavanna, who is the spouse of Aulë, has never been there, for her business is with things that live and grow, and moreover, she has had little love for the children of Aulë, since from their creation they have been set against the things of her dominion.

And yet she saw the great joy of Aulë when it was decided against all custom that a Dwarf was to be permitted passage to Aman, and she was divided in her thought. Yavanna went then to Varda, who hears all from her lofty perch upon Taniquetil, to seek her counsel in this matter.

‘What know thou of the Dwarf Gimli?’ she asked, and Varda, looking away, smiled softly, for though she loved Yavanna, she knew well her stubbornness, as unbending and like to hold a grudge, in her own way, as the Dwarves of Aulë.

‘Surely nothing thou dost not know thyself,’ she answered. ‘For wert thou not at the council wherein it was decided that he should be permitted to dwell in our realm?’

Yavanna was silent, for this was true, and looked into her heart. Truly, she knew that she had come to Varda not for counsel about the Dwarf himself, but rather as regarded her own actions in this matter. The Queen of the Valier abode in patience while she weighed her words. Presently, she spoke.

‘The children of my husband’s thought have ever sat in opposition to the things of mine, and yet I perceive that it is not so of this Gimli. This is passing strange to me; indeed it is more than I might ever have thought possible, and I am unsure what it portends.’

‘It may be that it is a sign of the changing Age,’ spoke Varda, ‘and that the house of Gimli Lockbearer shall ever hence be Elf-friends, and more temperate in their loves than others of their kin. But yet again, it may not, for indeed the Ages change, and neither Dwarves nor Elves shall ever again be what they were.’

For Varda is not Mandos, and has not the power to foresee such dooms. This Yavanna knew, and knew also that Elf-friends they might be, but that would mean little once all the Firstborn had gone forth from Middle Earth. Nor, indeed, was such friendship itself a marker of their worth, for Elves hewed her trees even as did the other races, and strangled their roots with their deep delvings.

Again, Varda smiled, and laid a hand on Yavanna’s shoulder. Her voice was distant and close as starlight felt on the skin, both warm and cool at once. ‘Go to him, Kemantári. Nothing shalt thou lose save thy stubbornness. The world is changeful, and even we may still learn from it.’ So Yavanna departed from Varda, and determined that she should visit this Dwarf among Dwarves to see for herself what she might make of him. 

Ever have the Valar clad themselves as the Children of Ilúvatar when appearing to the races of the world, but now Yavanna instead donned raiment as one of the Dwarves, as no Vala had ever done, nor has done since. Fair was the form in which she arrayed herself, according to the reckoning of that people; stout and sturdy as the roots of old trees, and indeed as such roots her feet half appeared, as if nothing might shake her once they had been planted. Her hair was yellow as corn, and yet fresh green leaves and vines were plaited as a crown about her brow, and in the beard which flowed over her chest; her eyes were dark, and her cheeks ruddy as the flush of spring. Clad in green she was, as ever, but beaten gold cuffs were upon her arms, and her fingers were thick.

Thus did Yavanna Kemantári come to the dwelling-place of Gimli, on the edge of Valimar. There were built several fair houses, and some way from them, a hobbit-hole with a round blue door, where lived the Ringbearer Frodo Baggins and his faithful servant, Samwise Gamgee. And if it seemed strange amidst the workings of Elven and Valarin hands, then the garden which lay before it was as fair as anything grown in the Elder Days, for it was the work of love, and Samwise Gamgee’s steadfast hands.

The house of Gimli was one he shared with Legolas, and was in its design as strange in its own way as the hobbit-hole, and unlike any other dwelling in the Blessed Realm. For here were wedded the disparate beauties of Elves and Dwarves, with arches and wide windows, and yet also everywhere were there carven pillars and beaten metal, and gems of clever and beauteous working set into sconces. Here Yavanna found Gimli, and she spoke to him, calling him by name.

Gimli looked up from his work, and was amazed, seeing what seemed a beautiful Dwarrow-maid, when he had thought himself the only one of his kind living in all of Aman. And yet he was more amazed still when he perceived the truth, for whatever raiment she wore, Yavanna had no intent of hiding her nature or her power, and he knew her for a Vala, and he fell to his knees.

‘My lady. Am I not mistaken? You are--?’

‘Name me,’ she commanded, gently.

‘Inhuzurmthuhûr,’ was the name he breathed, Forest-Queen in the strange and secret tongue of Dwarves. For though the Dwarves did not hold Yavanna in reverence as they did Aulë their maker, still she was known to them, and worshipped by some, and most by those clans who had been exiled from their mountain halls and made their homes for years uncounted in the wilderness.

And Yavanna was, despite herself, surprised at the reverence in Gimli’s voice, and her braided brows lifted. ‘If that is the name given to me in thy tongue, then so I am indeed. Thou needst not kneel, Gimli son of Glóin. For have I not come to thee even as one of thine own people? I wished to speak to speak to thee, nothing more.’

‘My lady,’ murmured Gimli, and rose to his feet to behold her. As is the way of the Undying Lands, some measure of his youth and vigour had been returned to him, and the white of his hair had turned to iron, and then back again to rust. But he was no longer the brash youth he had been during the War; his back was steely with the posture of lordship, and his gaze wise and cautious. ‘Such honour is unlooked for; I would have received you without soot on my hands.’

‘Had I need of a fine reception, do not doubt I would have announced my coming. And yet to find thee at thy work, with soot on thy hands and sweat on thy brow, it seems to me is the way of thy people. I see no shame in a craftsman at his work.’

Gimli’s eyes glittered. ‘Then perhaps you know little of the hospitality of dwarves. We are not all uncouth blacksmiths; were we in my halls, you would have been welcomed with feasting and song such as these lands have never seen.’

Briefly, Yavanna was shocked by his impertinence. And yet, why should she be, when his words were so comely? And so she laughed, the mirth startled out of her.

‘Thou hast gall, I see! And yet, I should not be surprised; that is how my husband made thee. Now, I have questions I would ask of thee. Thou knowest thou art the first of thy kind to come to Aman?’

‘I do,’ said Gimli.

‘And for what cause didst thou come?’

Gimli was silent for some time, pondering how best to answer.

‘I have no great craft with words, Lady Inhuzurmthuhûr, so I shall tell you plainly why; my friend Legolas invited me. He is the greatest and fondest companion of my heart, and to spend the last years of my life in peace with him is the finest thing I could wish for.’

‘Thou lovest him.’

It was not quite a question, though truly Yavanna wished to understand. And again, Gimli weighed his words before he spoke, as carefully as ever he had measured the tonnage of rock in his home at Aglarond, careful to take account of every detail before making so much as a chisel-strike.

‘Aye,’ he said at last. ‘And I shall take no shame in it, here; I am too old for such things. Have you seen the love between comrades, lady? Soldiers, who have been through fire and lived for no other cause but that their companions see another sunset? It is tougher than forged mithril, something pure and-- simple, in its way. Such is my love for Legolas, and yet also it is as the love of a wife for her husband, and the friend for a friend. There is much we share, and yet more still that we do not, and that is _good_. Know you anything of my people, lady?’

‘Very little, I confess,’ said Yavanna.

‘Then I will tell you that Dwarves love deeply, and fiercely, and with all of ourselves. _Umùrad-âzyung_ , is the word I would give to Legolas, in my tongue. There is no equivalent that I can think of, in the common speech.’

And Yavanna wondered, for indeed she had thought the Dwarves a rough people, brutish, careless of the finer beauties that occupied the other races. But here stood this Dwarf, who claimed to have little craft with words, and who yet spoke as a poet on the matter of his love. And she began to perceive that perhaps she had been in error. For while the object of his love was surely unique among Dwarves, it made Gimli no less Dwarf than his kin; that though the Valar held in highest regard the works of the Eldar, there might well also be art and poetry and things of subtlety and beauty that were the work of Dwarvish hands, and Dwarvish minds.

Her gaze on Gimli grew softer then. ‘And what of the Lady Galadriel? For know it was through her intercession that thou art here at all.’

And Gimli smiled, for though he had not known of a certainty, he had suspected that this was the case. Galadriel herself had been characteristically enigmatic on the subject, but it warmed his heart now to hear that she had spoken on his behalf.

‘I think her the fairest of all ladies, wise and powerful.’ He stopped then, and cast his gaze at the floor, remembering the grief of the days after the Fellowship had left Khazad-dûm; grief at the loss of Gandalf that belonged to all the Fellowship, but also his own private grief at Balin’s death, the death of all his kinfolk in fear and flame, the beauteous halls of the Dwarrowdelf turned into a nest for orcs and filth. Stricken with it, he had been, and full of fury at his treatment by the Marchwardens of Lothlórien. And then Galadriel had looked upon him, and spoken fair of his ancestral halls in his own tongue, and it had seemed to him the sweetest and most wondrous thing anyone had ever done. He looked back to Yavanna. ‘And even fairer here than she was in the woods of Lothlórien, for here there is no fading.’

Again, Yavanna laughed, but this time it was from joy, rather than surprise. ‘Thou hast a fine eye! Are all Dwarves like to thee, Master Gimli?’

At this, Gimli’s expression grew wry. ‘More than you know, I suspect.’

From outside, there came suddenly the sound of a clear, high voice singing gaily, a song of the sea, for which Legolas had now developed a love untainted by any sadness, and Gimli smiled, though crookedly. ‘My husband returns, my lady.’

‘And I shall leave thee to him,’ said Yavanna. ‘Perhaps I shall return another day, and see if he speaks as sweetly as does his love. Perhaps then thou mayst welcome me with feasting and song, if still thou wishest.’

Yavanna went then to the Mansions of Aulë, where he was returning from his smithwork, and she said to him, ‘Thou madest thy children to be as stone, unyielding and unchanging, and yet I have found one whom I shall call also a child of my own, for he has grown, and changed beyond the measure of his kind.’

And Aulë laughed, a booming thing like the fall of rocks in subterranean caverns. ‘Even as thy trees bend in a gale, so also may stone melt and be shaped. And as stone is unyielding, so too the roots of trees may crack and break the toughest of it. He has not grown beyond the measure of his kind; the measure of his kind is simply greater than thou didst know.’

This, Yavanna did not credit with an answer, but she was smiling as she turned away.


End file.
